WEST NEWBURY — Have too many dreary days left you and your family singing the summertime blues? If so, step out of the rain and into the light — the creative light of The SummerBlast Finale tonight at the Pentucket Regional High School.
This free event is the culmination of a two-week summer arts program for students in grades 2-12. Hosted by the non-profit Pentucket Fine and Performing Arts Foundation and sponsored this year by the Eastern Bank Charitable Foundation, the SummerBlast Finale opens with a visual arts exhibit in the high school lobby from 6:30 to 7 p.m.
The exhibit includes work created over nine days in the Oil Painting, Artist's Notebook and Draw!Paint!Explore! workshops. Featured artists included Katya Belaya, Anna Bouchard, Nicole Brown, Katie Coulter, Phoebe Delaney, Rachel Fowler, Joseph Guisti, Samantha Herald, Alyssa Kelley, Brittany Kelley, Theresa Loos, Jacques Lussier, Dylan Masi, Megan Migliozzi, Colleen Moore, Kate Murphy, Grace Perrotti, Stephanie Peter, Casey Saitow, Jamie Lee Snook, Victoria Spofford, Matthew Thompson, Michael Thompson and KimberlyYoung.
Then at 7 p.m., Kidz Arts actors in grades 2-6 take the stage to perform their version of "The Elephant's Child" by Rudyard Kipling. The tale, from Kipling's "Just So Stories," offers a playful explanation for how a young short-nosed elephant full of "satiable curiosity" (Kristina Belaya) winds up with a long truck after an unfortunate encounter with a crocodile (Owen Gorrel) on the banks of the Great, Grey-Green, Greasy Limpopo River — portrayed by Samuel Bisset, Kyleigh Campbell, Emma Carleton, Madeline Conover, Grace Giannatsis and Katie Latham-Rosa.
Other Kidz Arts performers include Cadrin Comeau, Olivia Edic, Julian Erhard, and Delaney MacFarland.
The finale concludes with a performance by the SummerBlast Musical Theatre Ensemble, featuring students in grades 7-12. The teen actors will perform a comical retelling of Homer's "The Odyssey." The play follows the adventures of Otis (Joe D'Amore), an unlikely epic hero who faces many humorous obstacles at the Odyssey Boarding School as he searches for a way back home to his girlfriend, Penny (Kelsey Logan).
Other members of the Musical Theatre Ensemble include Lee Atherton, Melissa Bowden, Jared Cazmay, Jacqueline Dest, Maddie Dion, Olivia Dunn, Katie Formosi, Aidan Gorrel, Lexie Heusser, Samantha Holt, Lindsey Karalias, Liam Leonard-Solis, Linnea Mangodt, Hannah Miles, Maegan Muollo, Cassie Pacenka, Kayla Pacenka, Brooke Snow, Olivia Spofford, Ann-Marie Studzinski and Tayla Racca.
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